Senate GOP: No hearings for Supreme Court nominee

Republican leaders on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday they wouldn’t hold hearings on a nominee from President Barack Obama.

Obama has dismissed the concerns, rhetorically asking Senate Republicans to find a passage in the Constitution that said that presidents couldn’t nominate Supreme Court Justices on election years.

Doesn’t sound like it. McConnell wrote the Lexington Herald-Leader in his home state of Kentucky and said action in the Senate should be deferred until after the election.

President Barack Obama should nominate a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and the Senate should consider the appointment, Sen.

As you likely know, there’s a fight brewing on Capitol Hill over whether the Senate will confirm a Supreme Court justice nominee while President Obama is still in office.

Republicans also argue that the Senate’s longstanding tradition is to not confirm justices in an election year, and they point to a June 1992 Senate speech by Vice President Joe Biden, then the DE senator, in which he argued that then President George H.W. Bush should not name a successor if a justice were to die or resign.

A 1992 Washington Post article unearthed Tuesday quoted Biden, now Obama’s vice president, as arguing that Bush should delay a prospective nomination to the Supreme Court until after the November election.

“I believe the Senate should not move forward with the confirmation process until the American people have spoken by electing a new president”, Ayotte said in February 14 statement.

Even the most divisive nominees for the high court have received a hearing before the Judiciary Committee, and the election-year decision to deny such a session is a sharp break with the Senate’s traditional “advise and consent” role. Over the last few days, much has been written about the constitutional power to fill Supreme Court vacancies, a great deal of it inaccurate. In back, from left are, Counselor to the Chief Justice Jeffrey Minear, and Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr., Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor. He pointed out that he said later in the speech he would consider a nominee put forth by Bush if he or she was a moderate and if the president consulted with members of the Senate.

“For my part, it’s clear that the president can send up a nominee – regardless of where he is before he leaves office”, Collins told CNN.

Senate Republicans were seizing on Biden’s position more than two decades ago to bolster their argument for awaiting the selection of a new president before replacing Scalia.

The modern-day conservative Republicans are running counter to their conservative icon President Ronald Reagan.

Jeff Flake of Arizona, another Judiciary Committee member, on Monday backed McConnell’s stance. About a quarter of the public (26%) favors the Senate delaying action on the court vacancy, and say they would not be swayed from this view no matter whom Obama nominates.

At least one of those senators, Republican Mark Kirk of IL, has suggested holding hearings, putting him at odds with fellow Republicans.